Individuality is an essential characteristic of modern dress, for both the young and the old, and for females and males. However, it is both costly and difficult to purchase or make custom-styled garments. Thus, there is great need for means for individualizing otherwise undistinguished, mass produced garments.
One form of individualizing apparel is by embroidering custom designs or attaching patches to apparel. These designs and patches are often used by persons to express an affiliation with or support for a particular cause. For example, a motorcycle club may have a common design or patch that each member desires or is required to attach to her jacket or other apparel to show affiliation. The member may also desire to remove the design or patch when he or she changes affiliation, instead of purchasing a new jacket or other apparel especially if the jacket or other apparel is expensive.
While distinctive decorative embroidery and patches may be hand or machine sewn to garments, they require both considerable skill and time for application. This is because most garments are produced with a liner. Liners are generally a non-irritable material than an outer material of a garment, and provide a wearer with a softer contact surface and may also block wind from making contact with the wearer. Thus, liners are essential to a garment or apparel, especially jackets and vests.
For jackets and vests, an enclosed liner is provided on an inner portion of the garment also to conceal stitching resulting from embroidery or patches and to cover excess fabric backing and stitching on an inner surface of the outer material of the garment. In the prior art, a technician must remove the liner by cutting liner, commonly along the edges or seams of the liner, prior to performing stitching of embroidery and patches, and after work is performed the technician must then reattach the liner to the garment. As a result, much time and labor is required which results in high cost.
Similarly, once stitched to the garment, the embroidery or patch becomes, for all practicable purposes, an integral part of the garment, and it is difficult to remove without much time and effort. Again, the liner must be removed by cutting the edges prior to removing the embroidery or patch and then reattached after removal of the embroidery or patch. Thus, it is labor intensive and again results in high cost.
Therefore, a need exists for reducing the time and effort required to apply and remove custom embroidery and patches to and from apparel.